Posts Tagged ‘Reviews’

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Best Crime Novel Honor & Christmas Gifts for Everybody!

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2025

Some announcements as we head toward Christmas 2025, after which I have some presents for you to unwrap.

Barb and I have been invited to be guests of honor at this year’s Star City Film Festival, where last year Death by Fruitcake won Best Feature. Mickey Spillane’s Cap City, which I co-produced and wrote, will be an official entry.

Last year we went to Waukon, Iowa, for the fest; but this year festival chair Dr. Katie O’Regan is moving the proceedings to Des Moines and the terrific Fleur Theatre, which is very supportive of Iowa filmmakers. More about this later, but if you’re within driving distance, mark your calendar for Valentine’s Day weekend 2026.

I’m pleased to say that the great Borg web site has named Baby, It’s Murder the Best Crime Novel of the Year. If you go to the link, you’ll need to scroll down to read this nice honor for my final Mike Hammer collaboration developed from unpublished Spillane material.

And out of the blue comes this interesting review of Seduction of the Innocent, the third of the Jack and Maggie Starr mysteries (and likely the last).

If you haven’t seen my movie Blue Christmas, and would like some low-budget holiday cheer, it’s available on various streaming services, most recently You Tube.

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Now my Christmas presents for all of you who stop by here. These are performances from some of my favorite musical artists – many of you will be familiar with most if not all. But I encourage everyone to enjoy these, possibly with some rum-spiked egg nog.

This rendition of “Lazy River” starts out slow but really, really builds, as Bobby Darin so often did. Stick around for the whole performance and you’ll likely understand my obsession with BD that dates back to when I was eleven years old.

Introducing the Beatles doing “Ticket to Ride,” which I loved performing with the Daybreakers and Crusin’.

If you’ve never witnessed Vanilla Fudge in action, here’s their mind-boggling classic appearance on Ed Sullivan with “You Keep Me Hangin’ On.”

What James Bond fan can resist a great live performance of “Thunderball” by Tom Jones?

The most underrated female artist of the ‘80s – Kim Wilde. Feast your eyes and ears.

This, my friends is rock ‘n’ from the king – Elvis…Costello.

And here is Debbie Harry on The Midnight Special making America fall in love with her:

And my favorite non-Beatles British invasion group in a Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame performance.

Finally, last and least, here are the Daybreakers in 2008, the original band regrouped for their induction into the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Say what you will about the goofy song I wrote in 1967 – which became the only national release by my first band, the Daybreakers – it did go on to be one of the most anthologized garage band singles, covered by bands around the world, including (but not limited to) The Outta Place, The Tellers and the X-Ray Harpoons.

You’re welcome. Now, let’s have a better 2026, everybody!

M.A.C.

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You May Have Missed Some of These…

Tuesday, November 11th, 2025

I try not to be overly commerce-oriented here, doing topics (in the Bob and Doug vein) that might be of interest to readers of mine in a fashion that doesn’t necessarily promote something that’s just come out or is about to.

Many of you who stop by here are fans of Nate Heller and/or Quarry and/or Mike Hammer, and some of the other things I do are not of much – perhaps of any – interest. I want to speak to those readers right now and discuss a few things of mine that they may not have tried.

Yes, here at the Skippy Peanut Butter Company, we have both smooth and chunky style.

I have done very well at Amazon’s publishing line, Thomas & Mercer, with my back-list titles, chiefly Nate Heller but also the “disaster” series, the five Mallory novels and a few stand-alones. My frequent collaborator, Matthew V. Clemens, has co-authored five successful T & M titles with me, including the bestselling Reeder & Rogers political-thriller trilogy, notably Supreme Justice.

I also did two novels about small-town Chief of Police Krista Larson and her retired police detective father, Keith Larson, who solve crimes in tourist-trap Galena, Illinois. These were designed to be my American entry into the “Nordic noir”-style of mystery. The first, Girl Most Likely, did rather well. The second one, Girl Can’t Help It, is the only Thomas & Mercer title of mine that hasn’t “earned out,” i.e., made back its advance.

Girl Can’t Help It is also the only novel of mine that deals with my experiences as a rock musician (I was a “weekend warrior,” singing and playing keyboards, for almost sixty years). The lack of success the novel has thus far experienced may reflect readers of Girl Most Likely not liking that novel enough to try the second in the series. I hope that is not the case, but….Anyway, I had planned a third but that never happened, for obvious reasons.

But if you like my work, you will probably enjoy meeting Krista and her father.


Paperback | Kindle | Audible

If you’ve followed my Mike Hammer titles, in which I complete unfinished material from Mickey Spillane’s files, you may also be familiar with the three Hard Case Crime non-Hammer titles, Dead Street, The Consummata and The Last Stand. But are you aware of the one Spillane horror novel that I completed?

The Menace, published by Wolfpack, I developed from an unfilmed Mickey Spillane film script. I had done this previously with the western, The Saga of Caleb York, also Kensington titles. The Menace reflected Mickey’s desire to meet Stephen King on the latter’s home ground, a monstrous menace terrorizing a father and his mentally challenged son, who may – or may not – be imagining he’s being protected by a resurrected Aztec mummy. I like the book a lot, but it’s easily the least read Spillane/Collins title.


Trade Paperback:
E-Book:

One of the great disappointments of my writing life has been how few readers have found their way to the John Sand trilogy written by Matt Clemens and me. The conceit of these novels, set in ‘60s period, is that John Sand is the retired (and now unfortunately famous) secret agent who James Bond was based on. These gave Matt and me a chance to expose our inner Bondian natures, and I frankly think these books they’re terrific. They were published individually by Wolfpack. Here’s the third of the three.


Trade Paperback: Bookshop.org Amazon Books-A-Million (BAM) Barnes & Noble (B&N) Powell's
E-Book: Amazon
Audiobook: Amazon

I talk about the Antiques series here frequently, the slyly subversive “cozy” mysteries that my wife Barb and I write together. It’s the longest-running series of mine, at 20 books, and (as you probably know) we recently mounted a movie, Death By Fruitcake, based on a novella featuring mother-and-daughter sleuths, Brandy and Vivian Borne.

Look. You may be after the tough stuff I peddle, the hardboiled Heller, the noir poster-child Quarry, the uber-tough Mike Hammer; but the Antiques series is filled with wacky humor and twisty mysteries, and — if you haven’t tried one – you are (in my completely unbiased, wholly objective opinion) missing out.

Also, some longtime readers of the Trash ‘n’ Treasures/Antiques mysteries have fallen away since we moved the series to Severn House, our British publisher who sometimes don’t make us into your local Barnes & Noble or BAM! (This is not Severin’s fault – the stateside brick-and-mortar bunch are to blame, indie booksellers somewhat better about it.) But, at any rate, you may have been having trouble finding the last few Antiques titles. The current entry is a good one for longtime fans, who’ve fallen away, and new readers, who haven’t boarded the Serenity Trolley yet.


Hardcover:
E-Book: Nook Kobo Google PLay

I mentioned last week that my little micro-budget movie Blue Christmas is available at Amazon – $7.49 for the DVD and $10.87 for the Blu-ray.

Blue Christmas can be streamed now on Tubi and The Roku Channel for free with ads, and on Amazon Prime Video for a modest price. Tubi runs a handful of commercials up front before presenting the film without any interruption.

The source of Blue Christmas is my novella A Wreath for Marley, which is the lead story in my Wolfpack-published Blue Christmas & Other Holiday Homicides.


E-Book: Amazon Purchase Link
Trade Paperback: Bookshop Purchase Link Amazon Purchase Link Books-A-Million Purchase Link Barnes & Noble Purchase Link

Copies of the Blu-ray and DVD’s of Blue Christmas are perfect stocking stuffers. In my opinion. So would a copy of the Blue Christmas short story collection. And your personal bookshelves are yearning for all of titles here – unless you already have them, in which case…God Bless Us, Everyone.

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Here is a fun review of Tough Tender at the Pulp, Crime & Mystery Books site.

Quarry gets some love from borg here.

And this is a terrific article on the film version of Road to Perdition.

M.A.C.

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Another Film Fest Award and…A Tricky One

Tuesday, September 9th, 2025

I wasn’t able to attend the Iowa Independent Film Awards, as I’m still in recuperation mode. I’m disappointed I couldn’t be there Saturday for our screening. But Death by Fruitcake did well just the same.

Death by Fruitcake IIFA award
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This is a tricky one for me, because I try to stay away from politics here. And my wife Barb, wisely, reminds me that people don’t come to this update/blog for such things. It’s difficult to restrain myself, sometimes; but mostly I do.

Let me say at the outset that I feel a need to let you know how events of the day have impacted my plans for the next Nate Heller novel. That’s what makes this germane, because I have mentioned, even discussed, that prospective novel several times. I’ve even presented it as my last Heller novel, and one I’ve in some respects been leading up to.

Now I may not write it at all, and you – those of you who are generous enough to follow my work – have a right to know why this book has been (at least) shelved for now or (at worst) never will get written. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that it basically means I’m considering two more Heller novels, not just one.

Also, I’m not fishing for a conversation or exchange of opinions here. Few facts are immutable, but this one is: no one ever won an argument on Facebook (or other Social Media); no one ever changed anybody’s mind on those platforms. I’m not going to try to. How you think, what you believe, is not my business.

Here’s how this transpired.

I was watching TV and saw Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and wondered if he had, if not damaged, the Kennedy name, brought it into a kind of doubt. He strikes me as a crank, and a dangerous one; some smart people disagree, but enough people share that view – that as Secretary of Health and Human Services he is a threat to health and human services – that the Robert F. Kennedy name is not something I dare, at the moment, hang a Heller on. It may already have hurt Too Many Bullets, my Heller RFK assassination novel.

I don’t do this lightly. I first asked Barb if she agreed that this was a bad time to embark on an RFK novel (the theme was to be RFK/Hoffa, as my previous Kennedy-oriented novels have more than hinted at). She immediately agreed and said, “Write something else.” I called my editor, Charles Ardai, at Hard Case Crime and asked if he thought I should do a different, non-Kennedy novel instead of the one we’d been planning (and that I was contracted to deliver). He was thrilled I was setting that subject aside (for now anyway). I asked my longtime researcher, George Hagenaur, what he thought. He, too, said it was a bad time to do a Kennedy book.

So. I am instead going to write a Watergate novel, which was already one of two Heller novels I was considering doing, for quite a while now. It seems like a good time to deal with a cover-up.

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This article celebrates the marriage of Dick Tracy and Tess Trueheart 75 years ago. You’ll have to scroll down to get to the meat of it, but it’s a nice piece.

Speaking of anniversaries, next year (2026) will mark Quarry’s 50th anniversary. The Broker, the first book’s title imposed on me (it’s now titled correctly as Quarry) went on sale in 1976. I had actually started it at the University of Iowa’s Writer’s Workshop in 1972 and finished it in 1973; but the anniversary is of the publication, not when I completed it.

Here is an audio review of The Wrong Quarry. A very nice one at that, and for one of my favorite novels in the series.

This will lead you to the wonderful blog, The Stilleto Gumshoe, where several Mickey Spillane articles appear and one of them is for Spillane, the bio by Jim Traylor and me. Good Spillane/Hammer/Velda stuff in general, but the bio review is a honey.

M.A.C.

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A Hell of a Review, Film Festival News & A Quarry Review

Tuesday, July 15th, 2025

Once upon a time, Kirkus Reviews gave my work some of the worst notices I ever received anywhere; they were downright mean. It’s even rumored that the despicable murder victim, Kirk S. Rath, in my Mallory novel Nice Weekend for a Murder, was named in their “honor.” No doubt I’ll get another bad review from them, before I leave the planet. But you know what?

They love Barbara Allan. Shhhhh! Don’t ever tell them I am half of that team, though undoubtedly my wife Barb deserves the lioness’ share of the credit.

Antiques Round-Up by Barbara Allan

Here’s the lovely Kirkus review of the forthcoming Antiques Round-Up.

ANTIQUES ROUND-UP Author: Barbara Allan
Severn House Pages: 208 Price (Hardcover): $29.99 Publication Date: October 7, 2025

Mother and daughter antique dealers take a trip to Texas, where all hell breaks loose.

Vivian Borne is a bipolar woman of many talents. Her daughter, Brandy Borne, is a divorced mother who takes antidepressants and dotes on her diabetic shih tzu, Sushi. Their shop sales need a boost, and since they’ve recently done well with Western antiques, Vivian’s motivated by an ad for a citywide yard sale to head to Tranquility, Texas, where she thinks they can score some bargains. Brandy’s fiancé, Tony Cassato — the police chief in their hometown of Serenity, Iowa — has a history with the daring duo that gives him little hope they’ll stay out of trouble. From the start, the trip doesn’t go well. They get a flat tire, they get lost, they get stuck in a ditch, they get stuck sleeping in a very odd motel. Awakened by the police, they’re arrested for damaging a replica of Cherokee life in the 1800s.

Tony gets them out of jail, but their arrival in Texas is marked by even worse trouble. Vivian, looking to get ahead of the competition, rents a horse and visits several sellers she’d talked with about purchasing certain items before the sale starts. Her first two meetings go well, but her third meeting with a Mr. Tool is cut short when she turns up his body, shot in the head. Since she’s already paid for a necklace, she searches for it and finds it just as the police arrive. With a long string of solving mysteries to their credit, the pair must solve this one to stay out of jail.

A rollicking story of crime fighting includes plenty of antique-buying tips and some Texas-style recipes.

I am pleased to say we have received many good reviews over the years for our Antiques/Trash ’n’ Treasures series, and not just from Kirkus. It’s gratifying, but we are pretty sure this is the first time a reviewer has started out by observing that “all hell breaks loose.”

Right now Barb is working on her draft of the next book in the series (which she always begins by telling me this will be the last one – we’re up to 20, I think). She is diligent and painstaking about the process in a way I admire very much.

There is nothing in my writing life more pleasurable than working on my draft from Barb’s first draft. Actually, what Barb hands off to me is not really a first draft, because it’s polished as “all hell,” to invoke Kirkus. How our collaboration works is this: we agree on a basic plot, very basic, the idea always coming from Barb, who says she needs a personal connection to the material. She writes a draft shorter than what we’ve been contracted to deliver. Let’s say (although this varies) she gives me 250 pages that I need to expand to 300 pages.

What do I do? I add even more humor (there’s always plenty), write action scenes she has skipped (leaving me a note to “take it away”), expand dialogue scenes when her short story roots start to show, and suss out any plot holes, of which there are few if any. Barb is very good about letting me do as I wish, as long as I don’t trip over the plot. That’s a possibility because I do not read her draft before I begin mine, which is a revision and expansion of hers, working directly in her draft. So the in’s and out’s of the mystery are often news to me when I reach them. If she can surprise me, she’ll surprise you.

I ask her how she can work so hard on something – a minimum of six months – and then hand it over to me, saying only, “Do whatever you want. I’m sick of it.”

She’s as good as her word.

I would say she is Brandy, more than she’s Vivian; and I am more Vivian than she is Brandy.

If you’re a fan of mine, and have avoided these novels because they are sold as cozy mysteries (which they are, but subversively so, a fact an Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine reviewer once pointed out), you should try one. You can always slip the inevitable cute dog cover off and only return it when you’ve completed reading it and shelving it spine out.

Confession: we love the cute dog covers.

There is further good Brandy and her mother news, by the way. Our Antiques indie film, Death by Fruitcake, has been chosen to be an official selection of another film festival – the Iowa Independent Film Festival. Keep in mind we only entered seven festivals and have been official selections of three. (Two festivals haven’t announced yet.)

What’s significant is the rule-of-thumb is…you are lucky to become an official selection of one festival out of ten that you enter. So we’re already ahead of the curve. We have limited ourselves to only Iowa fests, with the exception of the New Jersey Mystery, Crime & Horror Film Festival, which seemed right up our alley. Tough competition there (but, really, everywhere).

We are also looking seriously at three avenues of distribution, and should have an announcement soon.

Here is the official press release about the upcoming Star City Festival and my being honored there. It does not include that our film Death by Fruitcake will be screened on Saturday, August 2, at 6 pm with Q and A after.

Max Allan Collins Guest of Honor at The Star City Film Festival Waukon, Iowa July 31-August 3rd
News provided by

EIN Presswire
Jul 10, 2025, 10:05 AM ET

WAUKON, IA, UNITED STATES, July 10, 2025. The Star City Film Festival Returns to Waukon, Iowa for Its 8th Season
Celebrating Film, Creativity, and Community – July 31 to August 3, 2024. Special Guest of Honor Max Allan Collins.

The Star City Film Festival is thrilled to announce its return for the 8th season, taking place from July 31 to August 3, 2024, in the charming town of Waukon, Iowa. Founded and directed by the talented Dr. Katie O’Regan, this year’s festival promises to be an unforgettable celebration of filmmaking, featuring 40 diverse films, live performances of three new film scripts as radio plays, a glamorous red carpet premiere, and engaging talk-backs with attending filmmakers.

This year’s festival will honor Iowa’s very own Max Allan Collins, a celebrated figure in the world of film noir and a best-selling author, producer, and director. Max is renowned for his work on the Academy Award-winning film adaptation of his graphic novel, “Road to Perdition.” He has been recognized by the Mystery Writers of America as a Grand Master and has received an impressive twenty-three “Shamus” nominations from the Private Eye Writers of America, with notable wins for his Nathan Heller thrillers.

Max’s extensive body of work includes not only his acclaimed novels but also contributions to comics, film criticism, and several successful screenplays, including the Lifetime film “Mommy” and the HBO World Premiere “The Expert.” His creativity also extends to the world of documentaries, with “Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane” featured in the Criterion Collection.

Joining Max at this year’s festival is his wife, Barbara Collins, an esteemed short story writer and production manager for various independent film projects. Together, they have co-authored bestselling novels that showcase their unique storytelling abilities.

The Star City Film Festival aims to create a platform for filmmakers and audiences alike to connect, inspire, and celebrate the art of cinema. Attendees can look forward to a lineup of films that highlight emerging talent, as well as discussions that delve into the creative process behind the stories told on screen.

Join us in Waukon for a celebration of film, creativity, and community for all the activities including a live street dance and outdoor music with “Corn Days” happening at the same time!

For more information about the festival, ticketing, and programming details, please visit www.sacrednoisesociety.org

Dr. Katie O’Regan interviewed me, and I think it’s one of the better ones I’ve given in a while.

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Here is an expanded version of my San Diego Comic-Con appearances, now including signings.

San Diego Comic-con 2025 Schedule

Thursday, July 24:
11am panel “Leave Them in Suspense” 23ABC (Mysterious Galaxy)
12:30pm signing AA09

Friday, July 25:
4pm “Spotlight on MAC” 28DE (Robert Meyer Burnett)
5:30pm signing AA23

Saturday, July 26:
10am signing booth 2001 (new Johnny Dynamite book)

Sunday, July 27:
11:00 panel (Titan with Andrew Sumner) 32AB

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Apparently because Hard Case Crime has released a new trade paperback of The Last Quarry (previously only available in traditional mass-market paperback), a few reviews for that 2006 novel, which ignited a new run of Quarry novels, have begun to pop up. I’ll be starting the next soon (actually, noodled some on it this morning).

Here’s one of these reviews.

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Here’s where you can stream the late great Michael Cornelison in Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life.

As I’ve been interviewed about returning to indie filmmaking late in life after a twenty year hiatus, it’s occurred to me that this loss of Mike was the reason. Mike was involved in every one of my productions – he acted in Mommy, Mommy’s Day, Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market, and Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life, plus narrated both Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane and Caveman: V.T. Hamlin and Alley Oop.

And my impulsive move back to filmmaking was deciding to film our radio-style play, Mickey Spillane’s Encore for Murder. It was originally produced as an audio-only production starring Stacy Keach as Mike Hammer…and Michael Cornelison as Pat Chambers.

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Please check back in with me next week before Barb and I leave for the San Diego con on Wednesday. The update after that will likely be photos from the con, particularly of my panels with my pals Rob Burnett and Andrew Sumner.

M.A.C.

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